Since we, metal hoarding, Federal Reserve hating, food stocking, gun loving citizens are now considered terrorists in this country, I urge everyone to watch this video on why you should under no circumstance talk to the police. Its a 45 min video, only first 20 min with the lawyer is mandatory watching, but if its too long for you, basically:

Anything you say to the police may be used against you in the court of law. Anything you say to the police may not be used to defend you in the court of law. So it boils down to all risk and no reward. Maintain your right to silence under the 5th amendment and only talk to your attorney. If your attorney advises you to talk to the police under video taping, fire your attorney and hire a competent one.

That is to say, volunteer for the Police Athletic League, Police Christmas gift drives, etc. I go to the Sheriffs ranch and help out with fixing up donated bicycles every year, and have made friends with a number of deputies. One of them is a regular at our gun club, so I take every opportunity to help this guy out with stuff like fixing his cars, help out with the kids when the wife is sick etc.

Our local city cops have similar programs that I help with and that has led to a friendship with their lieutenant.

__________________ All things being equal, the simplest answer is quite often the correct answer - Occam

That's correct, and the case in DC was truly ugly. After repeated calls - the cops had even shown up after one, finding the subject badly beaten, then left despite protests and requests for protection, the perp came back one final time and beat the female victim to death in front of the family. The family brought the case to the supremes - whereupon that ruling came down. You want protection, hire a bodyguard. The ones you pay already aren't into doing that and aren't required to.

Protect and serve is just paint on the car. Their job is to gather evidence to go convict someone. If it's the right someone, that's merely a bonus, but not part of the job description - someone else's problem. They've told me as much.

No matter who kills your wife or husband, you're taking the fall, and it doesn't have to be a close call like in "the fugitive" either.

As a member of VCDL (kind of the VA version of NRA) I can tell you that the problem with court rulings is that you might still have to go to court to get them established as precedent. For quite some time, various localities in VA (including Fairfax county, where the rich gov workers live) decided that carrying a gun was illegal, period. People in VCDL were getting arrested quite frequently by cops who didn't know the constitution, much less the local laws. They even printed up a wallet card to show cops, citing chapter and verse, and started an education program for the cops on the actual laws, as well as getting a few unconstitutional laws - and ordinances, tossed out. It's been a major struggle to say the least. You can imagine, some woman calls 911 on her Cel, and says "there's a man in here with a gun" and hangs up.

VCDL had to educate the responders to ask - is it in a holster? Note, very few gun incidents by a bad guy involve holsters!

If the cops catch you taping or recording them - count on your camera or recorder getting seized at this point - there's a lot of tales of it happening, and coming back erased *after* you fight it in court - and so far, not every one has won in the sense of restored value - sometimes they've dropped it, but you can't get damages.
One guy got charged with "wiretapping" - and it stuck.

If the cops catch you taping or recording them - count on your camera or recorder getting seized at this point

...while not arguing that it can happened (not at all...) - it would be interesting to know, under what laws are they confiscating someone's property? I mean, it is, say, a phone, and you are openly videotaping the public servant acting in a public place - so no privacy breach here, so how they can confiscate someone's belongings, on a whim? Why not confiscate your shoes (or the content of your wallet, for that matter), by comparison? Do they not need a court warrant to confiscate things, used for lawful purposes?

As it turns out, the law is no more in their favor when they do that than when they beat a guy for driving while black...but somehow, the content of your recordings "gets lost" before you finally win in court - this has happened a few times (I track the EFF and they mention it), and the courts are slowly recognizing that it should stop but it's not everywhere yet. They have put GPS trackers on cars without a warrant, and the oldest trick in the book - they don't mention that in court at all, but they just use them to catch you doing something for which they didn't need a warrant - "pure luck" they say.

Streaming is a killer way around that - good move!

Digital stuff on you is "special" according to the cops - they can seize any of it to "inspect" it's contents just like it was papers in your briefcase - all they need is "probable cause" which is pretty damn ephemeral. You just look hinky to them, that's enough, and they never ever overturn that one in court. All they have to say is you looked stoned or too nervous. And at airports and border crossings, all the bets are really off - Bruce Schneier has had many threads about that one on his blog.

Right now, a woman is in jail for contempt for refusing to decrypt her lap top....she's probably guilty as hell - but it's nice to know that they can demand that.

We seem to have given up on much of the bill of rights recently - and that's not even a change with what party is in power - looks like it's own thing, completely out of control of the political process. My guess is that all the pols are dirty, and that DHS knows this dirt - so they get whatever they ask for. Inter-government blackmail.
Pretty hard to explain the sudden changes any other way they were not coincident with 9/11, exactly, but only happened after that agency collaboration sprung up and really got going.